Tag: Acadiana

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Castille takes look at centuries old affliction in new documentary, The Quiet Cajuns

by Dominick Cross

LAFAYETTE — Conni Castille’s insightful documentaries are all about the culture where she was born and lives.
For years now, Castille, Senior Instructor Moving Image Arts at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, has trained her insider eye on what most people may take for granted about the Cajun and Creole cultures in South Louisiana and put it out for all to watch, enjoy and, yes, get a better understanding of these peoples.
From the ordinary task of ironing, there’s I Always Do My Collars First (2007), to tasty local staples and what it takes to put them on the table with Raised on Rice and Gravy (2009) and King Crawfish (2010); to a deep dive on the South Louisiana envie for its other favorite four-legged friends in T-Galop: A Louisiana Horse Story (2012).
And now with The Quiet Cajuns: One Heritage. Two Generations. One Disease, comes the story of two generations of Acadian Usher Syndrome, which has sprinkled many family trees with deafblind aunts, uncles and cousins.

The Quiet Cajuns, Saturday, March 12, 2022, 5 p.m., Acadiana Center for the Arts, 101 West Vermilion, Downtown Lafayette, LA Free and Open to the Public


The subject of the documentary, Acadian Usher Syndrome (AUS), may seem a departure from previous documentaries of daily life, food and horses/horse racing in South Louisiana, but not so for Castille.
“I don’t find it a departure at all. The DeafBlind Cajuns are merely a sub-culture of the Cajuns, a group I’ve always documented,” said Castille, who had not heard of AUS until then ULL biology professor, Phyllis Baudoin Griffard, brought it to her attention. “I learned there was a subculture of Cajuns who have never heard a fiddle waltz and who lose their vision because of a genetic quirk that came here with the Acadians.
“It made me think there may be others like me who didn’t know that the largest population of DeafBlind Americans lives right here in Acadiana,” she said.
Griffard, who has the Usher Syndrome gene variant in her family, launched OurBio, a curriculum/oral history project that explores how the biology of our region shapes the story of its people.
“I initially contacted Conni because of her film, King Crawfish, a wonderful example of how I envisioned an OurBio project could work, teaching biology through local examples,” said Griffard. “Like our bayous and prairies, the genetics of Usher Syndrome presented an opportunity to tell a good story about ourselves.”
Castille hopes the documentary can help the afflicted by making more people aware of AUS and what’s available to them.  
“First, I think the film may help in identifying more DeafBlind in our community, making them more aware of the services available to them, as well as offering an opportunity to connect to the larger DeafBlind community,” Castille said. “Second, the general Cajun population can learn about the disease through the film. Understanding more about one’s genetic history can always be beneficial.
“Third, we will hand out greeting etiquette guiding anyone who may see or meet a Deaf or DeafBlind person,” she said. “This can encourage contact, making the seeing population more willing to visit with the Deaf or DeafBlind.”
 The usual suspects came together to make the documentary on a shoestring budget.
“With little to no funding, I was fortunate to have the creative team I’ve worked with in my previous documentaries agree to help me with this passion project,” said Castille, with a nod to cinematographers Allison Bohl Dehart and Brian C. Miller Richard and others.
“The cinematography is beautiful. Students in our UL Moving Image Arts film program helped produce the film by working as second camera units and in some post-production,” she said. “I had the pleasure of meeting and working with local editor, Trevor Navarre, for the first time. His total creative immersion in the project, and his attention to detail, added deep emotion to the script.”

The film is closed-captioned. Following the screening there will be Q&A session. Platform interpretation in American Sign Language will be provided.

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Ardoin and Ledet nab Grammy noms; Loreauville’s Marshall (Black Pumas) back for another, too

Corey Ledet / Dominick Cross, photo

LAFAYETTE, LA (BHP) — It’s not their first rodeo and while they’re not quite back in the saddle again, they do have one boot in the stirrups as Acadiana’s Sean Ardoin and Corey Ledet and their zydeco music releases are nominated for 2022 Grammy awards in the Best Regional Roots Music Album category.

Ardoin’s “Live in New Orleans!” and Ledet’s “Corey Ledet Zydeco” were tapped.

The Black Pumas, of Austin, Texas, with Loreauville native and keyboardist JaRon Marshall in tow, were nominated in the Best Rock Album category with album “Capitol Cuts: Live from Studio A.”

In addition, their song “Know You Better” from that album is up for Best Rock Performance.

Ardoin was nominated for a Grammy in 2018 in two categories: Best American Roots Performance for “Kick Rocks” and Best Regional Roots Music Album for “Kreole Rock and Soul.”

Ledet’s “Nothing’ But the Best” was nominated in 2012 in the Best Regional Roots Music Album category.

The Black Pumas were nominated last year for Best New Artist in their category.

Best Regional Roots Music Album For albums containing at least 51% playing time of new vocal or instrumental regional roots music recordings.

Live In New Orleans!
Sean Ardoin And Kreole Rock And Soul 

Bloodstains & Teardrops
Big Chief Monk Boudreaux 

My People
Cha Wa 

Corey Ledet Zydeco
Corey Ledet Zydeco 

Kau Ka Pe’a
Kalani Pe’a

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CABLOG author, Dege Legg, talks music, life, quarantine and, of course, his book

Dege Legg / photo: Lucius Fontenot

by NATHAN STUBBS

Award-winning writer and musician Dege Legg, aka Brother Dege, has charted an unconventional career course, following a creative spirit and impulsive gut along a zig-zag path that has included stints as a journalist, warehouseman, mechanic, homeless shelter caseworker, and for five years, late night cab driver in the Acadian hub city of Lafayette, Louisiana.

Documenting this dashboard vantage point of the after hours underworld of Cajun and Creole country is his new book, Cablog: Diary of a Cabdriver, out Nov. 10 by UL Press. Crafted from Legg’s personal journal, Cablog is a rare exhibit in the nonfiction genre, a poignant documentation of the often neglected fringe of our community. With an ear for dialogue and eye for detail, Legg captures the charm and despair of real-life character plights. Cablog picks us up for a shotgun ride through the storied downtown corners and less traveled backroads that, much like Brother Dege’s music, dive into a gritty Southern Gothic folklore that is both infamous and inspiring.

Nathan Stubbs (NS) caught up with Dege (BD) for a brief Q&A about Cablog, and how he’s coping through all the historical mayhem of 2020. Go here for a review.

NS: You’ve toured throughout North America and Europe several times with your band Brother Dege & The Brethren. How are you adjusting and what’s daily life like now that the pandemic has put live concerts and travel on hiatus?

BD: All good. To be honest, I needed a break from the grind. After a solid decade of banging around in vans, at the club level, I was a little burnt. I’d already blocked out the spring and summer 2020 for recording and the CABLOG book, so it all worked out perfectly with minimal distractions. And it gave me a chance to recharge the batteries. But now I’m feeling a little stir crazy and ready to roll.

NS: Do you expect live concerts will come back bigger than ever? Or is live entertainment forever changed?

BD: Who knows? All bets are off. But maybe both. It’ll probably come back huge at the enormo-dome level and slowly come back in the club sector. So many smaller venues have closed down because of the pandemic stuff that it may take a bit to get them back open.
NS: You’ve worked so many jobs – musician, cab driver, journalist, line cook, homeless shelter caseworker. If you were to choose another career path aside from music, what do you think it would be?

BD: If I had to do it again, I would’ve gone the academic route and become a professor of something interesting or gone the full-pirate program and lived on a boat.
NS: So many people are going through job adjustments with the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic. What’s Brother Dege’s best career advice?

BD: First off you have to be nuts to do music or art as a career after a certain age unless you’re lucky enough to be Bruce Springsteen or someone like that. It’s a tough living with a ton of anxiety. But then again, the creative life kind of chooses you, and then you just hang on and try to keep it out of the ditch. It ain’t always easy. Advice: trust your gut, take the slow-growth train, and don’t wait for anyone to do anything for you. Just go out and do it, especially if you live in the Deep South. Nobody’s going to do it for you.

NS: Your song “Too Old to Die Young” was famously featured in the Quentin Tarantino film Django Unchained. “Hard Row to Hoe” was the theme for the TV show After the Catch. (Both songs are from Legg’s 2010 release, “Folk Songs of the American Longhair”) What have you been binge-watching in Quarantine and what guilty pleasure film or TV show would you love to see your music in?

BD: My quarantine TV diet is mostly exclusively composed of kooky YouTube videos on obscure topics like overunity generators, exopolitics, anti-gravitic technology, Van Halen live footage (1977-79), 20th century Arctic exploration (i.e. dudes getting stuck in the ice), and survival documentaries (dudes getting stuck on mountains), nanotech/A.I. (programmable matter). Plus a bunch of other nutty stuff.

NS: A lot of bands are increasingly featuring their music in commercial advertisements. Is that something you’ve considered? Could you ever see “Partial to the Bitters” as part of a coffee promotion or “Hard Row to Hoe” in like a John Deere ad?

BD: 20 years ago scoring a commercial was considered selling out. Now it’s like a saving grace moment for most indie artists. It’s the wild west out there in music land, so as long as you’re not selling war machinery or genocide, I think it’s fairly acceptable nowawdays. I’ve never had any of my music in any commercials, so I’m not sure what would work.

NS: You’ve also been nominated for a Grammy as well as being an award-winning writer. What accolade are you most proud of or is giving awards for art all bullshit?

BD: They’re kind of bullshit and ceremonial – pats on the back from the corporate overlords for being a good slave. But they also toss you credit in the straight world, so I don’t know. Not everything has to be art-damaged madness.

NS: In the book Cablog, you chronicle some of the racial prejudices, mental health issues and drug addictions that are very much in the news today in terms of police reform. What would you say you learned about law enforcement from the vantage point of a late night cab driver?

BD: Whew. Working nights, you’re right on the front lines of the craziest stuff that’s happening in your city on any given night, and cops are right up in it, so it’s not an easy job. I wouldn’t want to do it. And I don’t think most people that criticize cops would be up for doing it either. I’ve been roughed up by cops in the past, but maybe I had it coming, so fair play. But they definitely overreact a lot, probably as a result of getting burnt out and cynical, while cleaning up the mess that’s part of any system. I should remind people that I’m just a kooky artist and definitely don’t have all the answers.

NS: Do you think there’s another book in your future? What other topics could you see yourself delving into in book form?

BD: Yes. The plan is to do a series of books of the “LOG” variety. The next book in the series would be a ROADLOG book – about my experiences touring in rock & roll bands over the past 20 years. CABLOG covered 5 years on the job. ROADLOG encompasses 20 years of the kookiest, nuttiest, most absurd stories from the road, all of which I’ve been documenting in a massive Word document that will be a challenge to edit and revise, but it’ll be worth it. I may have to split into two ROADLOG books (Pt. 1 & 2). Musicians are pretty entertaining creatures when they’re not on a stage. After the ROADLOG book, I have another LOG-type book in mind. It’s still coming into focus. But that’ll make it a set of three in the LOG series. Hopefully, people will be able to buy them like a box-set of CDs, but it’ll be books, which will be cool, I think. It’ll look nice on a bookshelf, like a set of wacky encyclopedias.

NS: It’s hard to escape today’s politically-charged climate. As a writer/artist in the deep south, how are you absorbing our state of politics? Is it starting to seep into your work?

BD: Man, I’m so far in the rabbit hole that it’s almost impossible to have a healthy conversation with most people about politics. I’m 20 years in. I read a ton of books. Plus I know I’m kind of off the traditional grid of thinking, but this is my journey. So I don’t even bother – at least online where it’s ridiculously conservative and tribal on both sides. Like Church Ladies all ridiculing one another. Fuck off. What a waste. Quit being so square. Loosen up. Especially artists. Nobody’s going to you for political advice, dude. I try to look at everything as an exercise in abstract thought. It keeps me sane.

NS: The book CABLOG takes place in the early 2000s. So much has happened since then, it almost seems like a different era. Can you set the stage for us a little bit for the book? What were you going through personally then and looking back, what do you find significant about what was happening locally at that time?

BD: In 2003, I was broke, living in a motel, unemployed, and my band of ten years (Santeria) had just broken up. They all got jobs, married, or went back to school. I had no Plan B. But I still had the eye of the tiger, even though I was going nowhere. You’ve got to have a serious crazy bone in you to survive as a creative person down here. No question. Otherwise, the nerds and odds will just peck you to death. But I got lucky and found a job as a cabdriver. I try to turn everything into an art project – jobs, heartbreak, defeat, whatever – just to make it fun and ward off the humiliation of reality. It’s my survival mechanism. I knew I was going to write about this taxi stuff as soon as I walked in and met the boss and some of the other people that worked there. I was like, this is gold! But I also just needed a damn job, because I was broke. Sometimes I question the nonsensical trajectory of my own life, but I suspect that I was put here to turn this kind of shit into gold.

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The mask task: Say it, don’t spray it! PSA on the way to encourage the wearing of a mask in public during pandemic

by Dominick Cross

The coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic has a friend in people.

People, that is, who do not wear a mask or social distance in public.

It’s anybody’s guess why some of our fellow humans refuse to mask-up. It could be political, it could be religious, it could be they are uninformed, or, misinformed.

Whatever the reason, as of Monday, July 6, 2020, Louisiana had 66,327 of its residents test positive for the virus. Of that number, 3,188 people have died.

While we wait on a vaccine, a miracle, or possibly an astroid to render this all moot, there is something the average person can do to help quell the spread and keep themselves, their loved ones, and, yes, even other people’s loved ones, above ground.

Wear a mask. Properly. And social distance, of course. But today, let’s take a closer look at the mask issue.

Enter the Acadiana Planning Commission (APC) and the Acadiana Open Channel (AOC). Downtown Development Association and One Acadiana are also on board.

The two public entities, APC and AOC, are working on a Public Service Announcement to encourage donning a mask, especially after the increase in infections in the state and Lafayette in particular.

“What was happening was there was a surge with young people,” said Monique Boulet, chief executive officer, LA Planning District 4. “The numbers are higher than they have been to date since the beginning of this thing.

“So there’s really a great concern that people don’t understand the simplicity of wearing a mask and actually trying stop this thing or slow it down,” she said.

Considering the target market of young people, APC re-upped some schoolyard snark, “Say it, don’t spray it,” that may ring a bell as a PSA slogan.

“When somebody says that to you, you don’t realize you’re spraying them,” said Boulet. “And that’s the whole point, right? to stop the spray out of your mouth from traveling to somebody else.”

Other potential encouraging words include Mask Up, Acadia! We wear because we care! Take masks to heart and do your part!

“And so message is really toward the young people,” Boulet said. That would be the 30 and under crowd.

The idea is to have people, like local musicians, football coaches and other residents record a video of themselves encouraging the wearing of masks.

Tips and other suggestions are in the graphic above. When finished, electronically submit your vid to https://www.aocinc.org/submit

“Chubby Carrier did a video. We’re going to go on-site with AOC to catch some of the football coaches at UL (University of Louisiana at Lafayette),” said Katrena King, Regional Planner II, Community Development Specialist. “And I was in touch with the Michots of Lost Bayou Ramblers and the Michot’s Melody Makers and they seem to be excited about the project and are hopefully going to send us something as well.

Ryan Cazares, optometrist at Scott Eye Care, musician, and who spearheaded Musical Instrument Library, sent in a video showing “how easy it is to wear a mask, and he put on a mask,” King said. “Just a personal spin on their own tagline but knowing what our campaign is about: masking up.

“We’re just trying to reach out to whoever might bite back,” she said. “The more lines out, hopefully, we’ll get a few responses. Basically, as many videos we get we can create PSAs.”

The business community needs to get involved, too.

“The businesses should really be standing up in front of everybody and saying, ‘We want to stay open. Please wear a mask,’” Boulet said. “Because if we close again, it’s going to be because things are out of control again and how do you stay open.”

AOC will do the tech work involved with the project. Most people involved will use their smart phone to video their message, but AOC will go to a location if that’s not an option.

Once in AOC’s hands, the plan is to get the 30-second finished product out on social media and even television.

“If they wanted to just slice the audio off, (AOC) could also make radio spots,” said Boulet.

The APC’s involvement in the PSA, in part, can be found in its mission statement: “The APC serves the public sector with planning and implementation of Community, Economic, and Transportation Development throughout the Acadiana region.”

In addition, the APC board is made up of seven Acadiana parish presidents, so when the pandemic hit, it was the go to body to do some outreach.

“We work very closely with all of the parishes,” said Boulet. That means things like transportation, broadband and watershed (which includes 16 parishes, FYI). “So, when this COVID thing started, we started the calls fairly early on. Maybe it was at some point in March.”

APC invited area mayors, the Louisiana’s Department of Health, the governor’s office, the offices of Louisiana’s senators to get involved in the discussions about the pandemic on conference calls.

“We’ve had Butch Browning (Louisiana State Fire Marshal) on to talk about when the capacity started becoming limited, what the implications of that was for different restaurants,” said Boulet. “A lot of these mayors, especially from the small towns, they’re the voice, right? but they really needed more information than we were getting from the press conferences.

“The calls have continued,” she said. “We didn’t anticipate they would last this long, but they have continued.”

A recent call, “was a very intense conversation about the reality of what’s happening,” Boulet said. “So, we had Tina Stefanski (Region 4 Office of Public Health Medical Director), on all of the calls.”

Depending on the evolving pandemic situation, different experts sit in on the calls and share advice.

“It’s just a support call,” said Boulet. “But it brings real information to them and allows them to ask questions in and around the information that’s been made public.”

Conversations include questions about the pandemic and related fallout, such as evictions, utility bills, etc.

As it happened, the idea for the PSA came from such a phone call.

“We are kind of the facilitator for regional issues, areas of concern that they share, which is a lot,” said Boulet. “Many of them have the same issues and concerns and questions in many different areas.

“That’s our function to pull that all together and really try to solve the problem together where we can,” she said.